Peyton Manning won his second Super Bowl on Sunday.
Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Peyton Manning gave Budweiser “probably the most valuable celebrity endorsement in history” on Sunday night when the Denver Broncos quarterback told a reporter in a live postgame interview that he was going to “drink a lot of Budweiser” to celebrate winning the Super Bowl.

Weser, who also retweeted a tweet saying that Manning’s shoutout to Budweiser was “the most badass move of all time”, quickly added that the company had not paid Manning to mention its beer and was “surprised and delighted that he did”.

Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser)

Hi Internet. For the record, Budweiser did not pay Peyton Manning to mention Budweiser tonight. We were surprised and delighted that he did.

Manning went on to plug Budweiser for a second time from the winners’ podium, saying: “What’s weighing on my mind is how soon I can get a Bud Light in my mouth”. Manning had used almost exactly the same wording in the past. In 2014 after winning his first playoff game in five years he said: “What’s weighing on my mind is how soon I can get a Bud Light in my mouth after this win.”

Peyton Manning endorses Budweiser for the second time from the winner’s podium

Brand and marketing expert Mark Borkowski said Manning’s endorsement of Budweiser was far more valuable to the brand than any commercial during the game could have been, because moments that appear to be “so off the cuff and so innocent have so much more cut through [than traditional adverts]”.

Borkowski said it was not possible to work out how much Manning’s endorsements were worth to Budweiser, but said it would be much more than than the $5m many companies paid for 30-second commercial slots.

Borkowski said advertisers that had paid out a record total of $377m on the Super Bowl would be “kicking everybody down the street this morning”.

“A television moment comes and goes. The value of this will be ongoing, and it is a running story now and will continue to be,” he said. “Advertisers are desperate to have something that cuts through the cacophony of [advertising noise]. This will go down in the annals of marketing history.”

When pressed to estimate a dollar figure for how much the endorsement might be worth to Budweiser, and its parent company Anheuser-Busch, Borkowski said it was “probably the most valuable endorsement in history. I can’t think of anything as big as this – an all-American superstar jock endorsing an all American beer in front of a record TV audience”.

Sponsorship analytics group Apex MG Analytics put the instant value of Manning’s plugs at $3.6m, but said that would grow with time as people talk about it on Monday and in coming days.

Alongside his Bud, Manning also likes a Papa John’s pizza. Manning, who owns several Papa John’s franchises, was shown on camera air-kissing Papa John’s founder John Schnatter on the field during his celebrations.